How to Create and Scale an Employee-Centric Company Culture to Increase Profitability

Limor Sella Broyde

29th October 2017

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The Pandemic of Engagement

Employee engagement is a powerful predictor of business growth, productivity, and efficiency. In a study carried out by Canada’s Queens School of Business, data shows that organizations with the most engaged employees accomplish “65% greater share-price increase, 26% less employee turnover, 20% less absenteeism, 15% greater employee productivity, and up to 30% greater customer satisfaction levels.”

In a world where three out of four employees are disengaged, there’s a growing responsibility on HR departments to develop and implement policies that improve company culture and increase engagement. But could this problem be solved by taking a new perspective on a business principle which is rarely questioned?

Creating a Human-Centric Company Culture

While many “thought-leaders” now postulate the strengths of a customer-centric approach to business, it is actually an approach which neglects the audience which is arguably more important – the employees.

To increase employee engagement and motivation in all levels and across all departments, HR professionals must strive to create an employee-centric company culture where all employees are encouraged to connect with their work and their coworkers in deeper and more meaningful ways. One of the most important ways of achieving this is by engaging digital transformation and giving employees a voice and allowing them to submit and develop ideas together as a community on an online social platform.

There are many options for engaging employees in this way, but the most powerful and beneficial of these is undoubtedly idea and innovation management software. Many leading companies across the globe are now doing this to generate astounding results.

Holistic Centricity

An internal crowdsourcing and idea management platform can offer many ways to digitally engage employees and build bridges. It can help them get to know new people from different departments, branches and even countries, and deepen their existing connections. By creating collective goals, it can foster a new and better “modus-operandi”.

Here are just a handful of ways HR departments can achieve increased engagement via a great crowdsourcing platform.

Creating a participative democracy where employees from all departments (or from relevant departments, depending on the complexity and applicability of the project) get to vote on different ideas, and democratically elect the best ones.

Rewards and incentives that recognize the people who come up with most valuable ideas

Open communication that keeps employees in the loop. They can choose to automatically get notified, at a frequency they choose, via emails alerts, newsletters or notifications.

Gamification – why not make engagement even more fun? Different gamification techniques and tools can further encourage participation and improve results.

Easy access – engagement numbers will go up if employees don’t have to jump through hoops to get to the crowdsourcing platform. Web and mobile access, as well as seamless integration with platforms such as SharePoint, Jive, Yammer, and Sales force would come in handy.

In an exponentially connected world where digital communication and collaboration is becoming ubiquitous, it is becoming increasingly crucial for businesses to adapt. When we take a look at how disruption is causing so many huge companies to disappear, it becomes clear how important it is for organizations to fight back on every front. The only way to achieve this is by transforming into a company which serves not only its customers but also its employees.

Another consideration is that an employee-centric company inevitably leads to a customer-centric company – when employees find themselves in a positive, connected, encouraging setting, they pass it on. A Gallup study found that engaged employees are more likely to improve their customer relationships, leading to a 20% increase in sales, and as aforementioned, 30% increase in customer satisfaction levels.

The Benefits of Employees “In Full Voice”

Not only does an internal idea management platform minimize the time it takes to get the knowledge to reach different groups, but it also meets the social and work-environment needs of digital-natives. Already a few years ago, a study found that digital natives entering the workforce need a platform for “internal knowledge management to support collaboration.” As this generation will soon be fulfilling jobs at all levels of companies, their contribution can help increase the company bottom-line substantially.

Qmarkets’ Idea & Innovation management software can generate amazing results for organizations, not just for employee engagement at all levels and human resource initiatives, but also for process improvement, new product development, mergers & acquisitions, and much more! To see a demo, pleaseclick here.